The weird ditty suited well with both.
She lean'd her head against a thorn, _The sun shines fair on Carlisle wa'_; And there she has her young babe born, _And the lyon shall be lord of a'_.
She's howket a grave by the light o' the moon, _The sun shines fair on Carlisle wa'_; And there she's buried her sweet babe in, _And the lyon shall be lord of a'_.
The singer stopped, as though conscious of the presence of a listener, and looking up from where he sat on a round block of timber, cutting up a similar block into firewood, he saw Ralph Ray leaning on his staff near the cave's mouth.

He had already heard of the sorrow that had fallen on the household at Shoulthwaite.

With an unspeakable look of sympathy in his wild, timid eyes, as though some impulse of affection urged him to throw his arms about Ralph and embrace him, while some sense of shame impelled him to kneel at his feet, Sim approached him, and appeared to make an effort to speak.

But he could say nothing.

Ralph understood his silence and was grateful for it.
They went into the cave, and sat down in the dusk.
"You can tell me all about it, now," Ralph said, without preamble of any sort, for each knew well what lay closest at the other's heart.
"He is gone now, and we are here together, with none but ourselves to hear." "I knew you must know it one day," Sim said, "but I tried hard to hide it from you--I did, believe me, I tried hard--I tried, but it was not to be." "It is best so," Ralph answered; "you must not bear the burden of guilt that is not your own." "I'm no better than guilty myself," said Sim.